How to avoid trick-or-treaters

Are you one who hides in a dark corner shivering with trepidation when unknown strangers dressed in frightening garb come knocking on your door asking for candy?
If so, you might suffer from Samhainophobia … that is, the fear of Halloween.
Or perhaps you would rather watch the San Diego Chargers battle it out with the Kansas City Chiefs Monday night from the solitude of your living room, without bothersome children begging for a “treat.”
Whoever you are, if Halloween is not your bag of candy, Paul Burke of Blacktop Comedy in Roseville offers these tips on how to avoid trick-or-treaters:
1. Invite Occupy Wall Street to set up a tent city in your front yard.
2. Put a sign out front in your yard that reads “Brussel Sprout Farm.”
3. Cover the house with Crime Scene Investigator tape with a chalk outline of bodies.
4. Buy a “Foreclosed” sign and put it in the front door.
5. Pay your child to stand out front and tell anyone approaching, “Don’t go up there! My best friend went up there and he never came back.”
6. Put a sign out front that says, “I heard they’re handing out full size candy bars at the next house!”
7. Put Christmas decorations in your front yard. They’ll be so confused they’ll skip your house.
8. Buy a big dog and scatter bones around.
9. Decorate your house like the witch house in Hansel and Gretel.
10. Train spitting llamas to recognize a costumed kid and start spitting.
Toby Lewis can be reached at tobyl@goldcountrymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TobyLewis_RsvPT.